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Posts Tagged ‘Art Exhibit’

This Beautiful World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »

This Beautiful World— At West End Gallery

To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.

— Novalis 

I don’t plan on saying much today. Just going to let the spirit of the words, painting, and song do their thing. With a quick glance at these three, you can see that the theme for today is a recognition of the beauty of our world. Or as Novalis put it: the magic, mystery and wonder of the world.

Or maybe it is about how we often don’t fully recognize those things? I can’t decide.

The words are from the 18th century German poet/philosopher Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg 1772-1801) who was amazingly productive with work that has had lasting influence in the many generations since his death in 1801, at the youthful age of 28. He is thought to have died from tuberculosis or cystic fibrosis.

His words coincide with the hopes of many artists in wanting others to see in their work the potential for the extraordinary in the ordinary. To see that beauty is at hand at all times.

The painting above, This Beautiful World, is 10″ by 15″ on canvas and is from my West End Gallery show that opens next Friday, October 17. The exhibit is being hung today so you can see it early for a preview, if you so desire. I think this piece falls nicely in line with the words of Novalis as a symbol of the sacred mundane.

The song is the title track from the great Mavis Staples’ new album, Sad and Beautiful World. It’s her cover of a 1995 song from indie rock band Sparklehorse. It is a simple song with spare lyrics but it beautifully lays out the depth of the sadness that often comes with beauty as part of the deal.

We need the contrast of sadness to allow us to fully see how beautiful this world can be and how fortunate we are to experience its love, beauty, and wonder. And how fortunate we are to be able to feel deep emotion or to cry in both suffering and joy. To know life and death.

To be human…

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Higher Rock

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Awakening— At West End Gallery

Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless, the awakening of resistance. Life may grow from it as from a seed.

–Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras (1942)

What awakens us?

What are the sacrifices that created us and brought us to this point in our existence?

What seeds have been condemned to rot so that we might stand on this rock?

So many questions.

Few, if any, answers.

It sometimes like we have evolved enough to ask the questions but not enough to recognize the answers.

We are left standing on this rock with only a vague sense of what that answer might be. 

A nebulous feeling of what is and what is not.

And sometimes that feeling is enough in the moment to sooth whatever it is within us that asks such questions.

It is enough to allow us to feel as though we have been given an answer.

The real question is: What do we do with that answer?

I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you this morning. It just felt right for what I was feeling from the combined stimulus from the passage along with the painting at the top and the song below. There seemed to be some thread of sense running between the three, containing some sort of answer to whatever question I was asking.

But then again, I could be delusional. I wouldn’t be at all surprised– I hear there’s a lot of that going around. 

The painting shown here is The Awakening, 24″ by 12″ on canvas, that is included in my solo show, Guiding Light, that opens at the West End Gallery next Friday, October 17. The Red Tree in it represents, for me, the growth from that sacrificed seed, the newly formed consciousness that feels the wonder of the world into which it has emerged. It seeks to understand the answers it feels it is being given.

The song below is a new song from the new album from Robert Plant called Saving Grace.  It features the vocals of singer Suzi Dian and the group Plant. I really like this recent performance on Jools Holland’s show and felt it fit well with some of my work, including this new painting.

Feels like there’s an answer in there somewhere if I could just make it out…

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Witnesses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 6, 2025| 1 Comment »

RedTree: Continuum— Coming to West End Gallery

“We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention. In some ways, this is getting far afield. I mean, we are — as far as we know — the only part of the universe that’s self-conscious. We could even be the universe’s form of consciousness. We might have come along so that the universe could look at itself. I don’t know that, but we’re made of the same stuff that stars are made of, or that floats around in space. But we’re combined in such a way that we can describe what it’s like to be alive, to be witnesses. Most of our experience is that of being a witness. We see and hear and smell other things. I think being alive is responding.”

—Mark Strand, interview with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow)

Mark Strand (1934-1914) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and essayist who served as the US Poet Laureate in the early 1990s.

I often wonder what, if any, purpose we have here on this planet. This thought from Mark Strand that we are put here in our present form as an assemblage of the molecules and matter of the universe so that the universe could see and analyze itself intrigues me.

Are we some sort of diagnostic tool? Is this planet a testing ground to reveal what works and what falls short? 

As I said, it’s intriguing. I have dozens of more questions pertaining to it. 

But perhaps Strand is closer to the reality of the matter, whatever the hell that is these days, when he opines that our ultimate purpose might be as witnesses. I guess that might still fall into diagnostic tool category as we would be serving as sensory indicators for the universe, cataloging everything–all the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, emotions, etc.– that we encounter in our time here. 

I like this idea of us as witnesses or observers. I have thought for some time that many artists of all sorts began their lives as observers, as the quiet kid off to the side taking in everything in great detail.

Maybe in those formative years, we are simply new and fresh out-of-the-box sensors that work at full speed and capacity? That makes sense to me since I now often feel that many of my particular sensor’s storage unit is just about full and my operating speed is greatly lagging. 

But beyond that, it is this idea of us being witnesses that speaks to me. We all want to believe that the thoughts, feelings and experiences that make up our existence have served a purpose, that they matter beyond our own small bit of self.

That our voice will be heard somehow as testimony to our existence, as well as to the lives and existence of those around us.

I know that this desire to have my voice heard, to articulate somehow my purpose and experience of living in this world, was the primary reason behind my beginnings as an artist. 

To add my data to the catalog of the universe as fulfill my purpose as part of its continuum.

I will finish by adding the following from Tennessee Williams, in an interview with James Grissom:

All of us require a witness. A witness who will let us–and the world–know that we have lived, that we have contributed. As artists we need to know that our contributions mattered, touched the heart, evoked a thought, led someone else off to their own pale judgment to scribble something out. When we create characters, we are witnesses to ourselves and to those to whom we have reacted, to those we have loved, to those who inspire us.

The greatest artists are, I think, witnesses. They have been, to steal a line, present at the creation….of whatever they have seen.

 

The painting at the top is RedTree: Continuum, 18″ by 36″ on canvas, that is included in my solo exhibit Guiding Light, that opens next Friday, October 17 at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY. The show’s Opening Reception, which is free and open to all, runs from 5-7 PM.

A Gallery Talk is also scheduled at the West End Gallery for Saturday, November 1, beginning at 11 AM.

Here’s Doctor My Eyes from Jackson Browne. Seemed right this morning.

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Quiet Revelation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 2, 2025| 1 Comment »

Quiet Revelation– At Principle Gallery June 13, 2025

When the brain is completely quiet, it is empty. It is only through emptiness that anything can be perceived. You need space, you need emptiness to observe. To observe you, I must have space between you and me, and then there is seeing. So, a mind that is crippled with sorrow, with problems, with its vanities, with its urge to fulfill, and frustrated, caught in nationalism – you know, all the petty, little things of life – such a brain has no space. It is not empty, and therefore it is utterly incapable of observing. And when a mind that is being petty and shallow says, ‘I must explore,’ it has no meaning. It must explore itself, not whether there is something beyond itself. So when the brain is completely quiet, empty – and that demands astonishing awareness, attention – that is the beginning of meditation. Then it can see, listen, observe. Then it will find out if there is something beyond the measure that man has made to discover reality.

–Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), From Public Talk 10 in Saanen, Switzerland July 1963 

Quiet the brain. Empty the brain.

Such a difficult task that feels like it should be easy, given how much space is actually occupied up there. Don’t be offended– I was talking about my brain. Not yours. Well, maybe a little about your brain.

I don’t know.

A big part of my work has to do with finding this sort of quietness, of stilling a mind reeling from the ceaseless bombardment of stimulus that this modern world serves up. My search is often futile with only short interludes of true quietude. Perhaps, as the philosopher Krishnamurti points out, by consciously searching– a product of a brain filled with the petty and trivial– I was actually preventing myself from actually observing the quiet that is always present.

I’ve been somewhat aware of this, often saying that my work is at its best when the brain is taken out of the equation, when I just let things happen on an instinctual or organic level. Getting there is much like the quieting or the emptying of the brain that Krishnamurti describes. A difficult task.

This new painting, Quiet Revelation, reminds me of the appearance of one of these rare moments of quietude. For me, the Red Tree here seems to have been able to block out the clang and furious rumble of this world, elevating to a point where it can observe the reality and harmony of the animating force that is just beyond our measure.

This energy source of which everything is comprised is the theme for my upcoming show, Entanglement, at the Principle Gallery. I see this piece with its quiet harmony, as a fine example of coming across that meditative stillness which is being sought, a feeling I experienced for a time while painting this piece.

And that’s always a gift. All I could ask for in my work.

Quiet Revelation is a larger painting, at 36″ by 36″ on canvas. It is part of my annual solo exhibit — this year marks my 26th show at the Principle– of new paintings, Entanglement, that opens less than two weeks from today, on Friday, June 13 at the Principle Gallery with an Opening Reception from 6-8:30 PM.

The day after the show’s opening, on Saturday, June 14, I will also be giving a Painting Demonstration at the gallery. The demo, my first there, should run from 11 AM until 1 PM or thereabouts. Hope you can make it either or both events.

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Hey Lord, Don’t Ask Me Questions

Posted in Event, Music, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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A clammy Saturday morning and my mind seems a bit foggy and tired. I’ve sat here for awhile now and I don’t feel like writing a damn thing. Don’t want to talk about anything. Don’t want to gripe about the goings on in the world or hear any more news this morning. Don’t want to talk about my work or myself, that’s for sure.

Just want to let my mind wander a bit.

Or not. Maybe just stare at the wall.

Or play some mindless scales on the guitar.

Anyway, here’s an old favorite of mine from  Howlin’ Wind, the 1976 debut album from Graham Parker. Great album. This song is Don’t Ask Me Questions and has been a constant refrain in my head since that time whenever I come across those days where I am tired and don’t want to be bothered by questions and chit chat.

Let’s just say that it has received a lot of airtime in my head over those many years.

I am pairing it with a new piece at the top that’s part of my upcoming show at the West End Gallery. Hey, I may not want to talk but a guy still has to eat. It’s called Play For Light, something I am hoping to accomplish this morning.

Wishing you all a good day.

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Working to Stillness

Posted in Event, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on July 9, 2020| 4 Comments »

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“You know that great pause that comes upon things before the dusk, even the breeze stops in the trees. To me there is always an air of expectation about that evening stillness.”

― H.G. Wells , The Time Machine

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The painting shown here, about 15″ x 24″ on paper, is titled Working to Stillness. It is included in my upcoming solo exhibit, From a Distance, that opens next Friday, July 17, at the West End Gallery.

I debated quite a bit over the title. I had read a letter of advice from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke that spoke of the great movements of activity that take place within us when we are still, sometimes resulting in great works at a later time. That made me think of making the title this painting Working From Stillness rather than To.

But I thought of the stillness that comes at the end of those days of great activity, of toil both physical and mental. When the tasks have been completed and set aside for the day, there is a sense of relief and satisfaction that sets upon the body and mind. Stillness arrives.

It’s a good feeling for me and one that I look forward to most days. I often think of my days as working to this stillness.

This piece captures that feeling for me. It has great warmth and an abundance of strength. I think I used the term muscularity when I was talking about it when I delivered the show to the gallery yesterday. It has that kind of physicality to it. I don’t know how to really describe what I mean by that but it sounds right. Maybe it comes from what I see as the strength of the colors and forms in this piece.

Whatever the case, it’s a piece that has great and undeniable presence in its setting. Maybe that’s the part that speaks most to me in these times where we all feel a need to have our voices heard. This one demands that its voice be heard.

Even in its stillness.

 

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The Dance

Posted in Early Paintings, Event, Painting, Poetry, tagged , , , , , on July 8, 2020| 7 Comments »

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“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”

― William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart’s Desire

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When my solo show, From a Distance, opens next week at the West End Gallery, a couple of the included paintings will not be new work. There are a couple of pieces in this show that are older and have an interesting provenance.

One is the painting shown above that I call The Dance. It was painted sometime around late 1996 or 1997. When I painted it, I determined that it didn’t fit in with the face of the work I was putting out at that time. It was too sloppy, too raw. It seemed to be moving in a different direction from the the path I was following. I decided to put it aside, unshown to the world.

But 23 or so years later, it is this very rawness that makes me want to show it.

The interesting thing is that in the intervening years, this piece disappeared from my sight. When I moved from my old studio up in the woods which I had worked in from around 1996 to 2007 to my current studio, this painting, along with several other paintings, were carelessly overlooked in the move. They had been bundled together and this bundle had somehow been misplaced.

I wrote about this episode last year, when I was looking for a group of lost pieces from my Exiles series for an exhibition, heading up to the old studio to search for them. The old studio had suffered greatly in the decade since I had last worked there. A tree had fell on its roof, breaking through to the inside in one small area and the rain and snow had taken a great toll on it. The whole building was now racked and reeling and one side of the studio’s floor held piles of dark rotting debris from the roof and ceiling.

On a rack of old frames in that space, only several feet from the hole in the ceiling and the mound of dark debris on the floor, there were several sheets of old cardboard all pushed together among the frames. I had been looking for awhile at this point and was getting ready to call it a day when I decided to pull out that stack of cardboard.

Nothing.

Behind the cardboard, there was a piece of old plywood pushed up against the end of the shelf. Frustrated, I pulled out the plywood and, lo and behold, there was a bundle of sheets of watercolor paper pressed against the end of the shelving. I pulled them down and found a spot amo0ng the wreckage where I could examine them.

The paintings were all in oddly good condition, given that only several feet away there was gaping hole where all sorts of weather were free to fall. There was some foxing and a little grime but it wasn’t terrible and could be easily addressed. Obviously, using the acid free cotton watercolor paper and having them bundled together had provided a degree of protection.

Kind of like wearing a mask, people!

Each piece was thrill as I shuffled through them. Most were pieces that I remembered distinctly, some very good and one or two that were what I would consider failures that should have been destroyed long ago. This piece was wonderful to see when I came to it. I was giddy with being reunited with this work that I hadn’t even realized I was missing.

But the very last piece in the bundle made me tear up. It was a landscape and it had a title and a date at the bottom of the sheet. It was painted on November 9, 1995 and its title was The Sky Will Never Forget ( Hoping For Light). My mom from cancer died later that night, in the first few hours of November 10. The memory of working on that painting and the emotions of that time flooded back to me.

So, this piece lived in dark peril, lost and forgotten for more than decade. I think it was just waiting to be unleashed so that, in its raw exuberance much like the character in Yeats’ verse at the top, it could dance upon the mountains like a flame.

I am glad to see it dance once again.

 

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‘Social Distancing’ Opens Today!

Posted in Event, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on June 5, 2020| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Shelter in Place 2020

My annual solo show of new works opens today at the Principle Gallery in Old Town Alexandria. This year’s show, my 21st there, is titled Social Distancing which very well describes the distance between me sitting in my studio this morning and the show hanging in the gallery down in Virginia. Now, that’s real social distancing.

It feels disconnected and strange to not be at an opening tonight and still be writing about it from the studio. But we are in the strangest days of recent times so I guess it’s only fitting that any event, particularly one titled Social Distancing, is not spared.

I think the duality of this idea– work about separation that seeks connection– is right in line with the message of much of my work throughout the years. The work has always focused on the distances of our world while still seeking to find closeness and connection.

Home, as it might be called.

Though I still haven’t yet seen the work on the walls of the gallery, I feel that this is a strong group. Strange times often bring out certain strengths and aspects of people. And art, at its best, reflects humanity. I believe this group is reflective of that.

I think it is authentic and human. Joyfully imperfect.

I hope you get a chance to get into the Principle Gallery to see Social Distancing. For those of you who can’t make it there, below is the catalog for the show. Thanks!

Be safe and have a great day.

https://issuu.com/principlegallery/docs/combined_final

 

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A Little More Vintage

Posted in Early Paintings, Event, Painting, Quote, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2020| 2 Comments »

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In my picture of the world there is a vast outer realm and an equally vast inner realm; between these two stands man, facing now one and now the other, and, according to temperament and disposition, taking the one for the absolute truth by denying or sacrificing the other.

–Carl Jung

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My annual show at the Principle Gallery each June is normally made up of solely new work. But I think we can all agree that this year is anything but normal. There’s been a little bit of everything thrown at us. I think that if a swarm of Bigfoots — or is it Bigfeet?— suddenly descended upon us from every mountaintop, we would just shrug it off as being just the next shoe to drop.

So, this being such an unusual year, I chose to change things up a bit and include a group of vintage pieces of my work in this year’s show. My only criteria was that they had some sort of link to the theme of the show which is, as the title states, Social Distancing.

Many of us are new to the concept of social distancing but for me it’s something I’ve been practicing for much of my life, even if I didn’t use that particular phrase. I have, especially for the last twenty five years, kept to myself, more or less. I have tried to simultaneously live in two worlds, the outer and the inner. Much like the view Jung takes in the words above, I have tried to straddle both of these worlds and have found that Jung’s observation is pretty close to the bone. The more and more time I spend in that inner world, the more real and expansive it becomes. I then find myself willing to sacrifice more and more of my connections to the outer world.

Reading that last paragraph just now, I realize that it doesn’t sound exactly healthy.  But even so, it seems to suit my temperament and disposition, to use Jung’s words again. Plus, in my inner world, it’s not considered unhealthy.

Two of the vintage paintings from this show that I think relate directly to this straddling of worlds are shown here today. The one at the top is a piece called Flower Shadow, that was painted back in June of 1995, twenty five years ago. It was never shown publicly but was always a favorite when I went through my older work, a piece that always made me stop for a few extra moments to consider it.

While part of me is attracted to it because of how it connects me to that early work, there’s something in it that speaks directly to me. Maybe it’s the idea of this rough flower, inside looking wistfully out a window. Living in two worlds, the inner and the outer, with an air of lightly wistful melancholy around it. It still speaks clearly to me, twenty five years later.

The other vintage piece is from ten years later, in 2005, and is from a limited series from that time that I called In the Window, which featured interior spaces with a window looking out on a landscape, which was the focal point of these pieces. This particular painting, In the Window: Dream Away, shown here on the right, was one of the first from that series.

Initially, this series was intended as a means to present my landscapes in a different way, like placing a gem in a different setting in order to highlight that gem. But as time passed, this concept of two worlds became more apparent to me in this work. I believe this particular piece, with its clarity and clean expression, exemplifies both of those concepts, the gem in a new setting and the being existing in two worlds.

I am really pleased to show these pieces now, though I do not being able to get some in person reactions like those normally received at a reception. But, as noted, these are not normal times so I will just put them out there and hope they speak clearly for themselves.

Hope you can make it to the Principle Gallery in Alexandria for Social Distancing, my annual solo show that opens there this Friday, June 5.

 

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Private Space

Posted in Biographical, Event, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on May 30, 2020| 3 Comments »

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“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but ‘steal’ some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.”

― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

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It’s probably been forty years since I last read Albert Camus‘ books, The Stranger and The Plague. I remember the affect each had on me at that time and can easily see how these books might have relevance in these times as well. As can the the words of advice above taken from Camus’ notebooks.

“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk.”

It seems as though an existentialist or absurdist, however one categorizes Camus, would be an appropriate voice for these times.

The painting at the top, Private Space, is going with me down to the Principle Gallery tomorrow when I deliver the work for my annual solo show there. This year’s edition is titled Social Distancing and opens next Friday, June 5.

I chose the words from Camus at the top to accompany this 15″ by 30″ painting because that list bit of it– “Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be” — seemed to express exactly what I was seeing in this painting.

Plus I most often opt for privacy and solitude in my own life and I am pretty sure I am not antisocial.

Well, not completely.

I might be considered cordially antisocial. Perhaps an affable misanthrope? Is that a thing?

I kind of see both of those things in this painting. There’s an approachable element in the Red Tree but also a sense that it wants to be at a distance from others. It doesn’t reject the world but wants to face it on its own terms, in its own way.

I can live with that definition– for this painting and myself.

Have a good day.

 

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